The present invention relates to the field of information handling and processing. More specifically, in one embodiment, the present invention provides for improved filing and retrieval of name cards and hankos based on content.
A "hanko" is a stamp commonly used in Japan which encodes for a person's name and can be transferred to documents via a rubber stamp or similar process. Often, a business person could provide a business card, hanko or personal calling card (generally referred to as a "name card") when needed. When a person receives the name card, he or she might also obtain or create other documents, such as trip reports, meeting notes, or documents provided by the person giving the name card.
It is desirable to associate the name card with the documents, but filing systems for name cards, such as small desk-top box for business card storage, and filing systems for documents, such as file cabinets, are disjoint. Consequently, it is not convenient to store both the document and the name card in the same place.
One solution has been to store the document electronically and type in the name card information so the document can later be retrieved using a key word query.
Another solution is to scan the name card and perform OCR (optical character recognition) on the name card so that the name card data does not need to be typed in. This approach has its own disadvantages, such as the unreliability of OCR, the fact that many of the unique elements of the name card or hanko are not text, but are graphical or ideographic symbols, and that the person performing a query still has to perform data entry to locate a document.
Therefore, what is needed is a filing and retrieval system which follows how people are used to storing information and can store and retrieve information based on contents of a name card or hanko without requiring OCR.